New York City and Camden, S.C., don’t have much in common — the differences between the two cities are vast. My daughter, Polly, and I traveled from Camden to New York City in the summer of 2011 to explore some of those differences.
A lot of people live in New York City. I looked it up. The population of New York City is at least three times the population of the whole state of South Carolina, just to give a good perspective of the first obvious difference between New York City and the city of Camden. So, we had a much larger and busier city to explore, and we needed a plan.
Polly was a rising junior in high school, and I was inspired to take her to New York City just as my mother had taken my sisters and me when I was the same age. I spent a lot of time researching the internet for ideas and deals. I finally settled on a CityPASS for New York City. With the purchase of a CityPASS, I got discounted tickets for a handful of places I knew I wanted to take Polly. The CityPASS benefits included VIP access to several of the sites, which sounds fancy but just meant that we skipped some of the long lines at those places. I recently looked over the CityPASS website to see how things have changed since 2011. CityPASS offers options for 16 large cities where there are interesting things to do and see. The list includes Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, and Orlando.
It became obvious that we were from a small town when I was planning how to get from the airport to where we were staying as well as how to get around during our stay. I was hesitant to take a taxi in the big city, to be honest. It wasn’t just the cost, but also the whole “country comes to town” vibe that I knew that I would give off in that situation. And the thought of driving... Well, in no conceivable circumstance would I, a true small-town girl, drive in the streets of New York City. Renting a car was out. So, our transportation for the week was the subway.
My plan was to buy a 7-day subway pass to simplify our travel in and around the city. We took the train from John F. Kennedy Airport and followed the signs up and down platforms to find the Jamaica subway station. I felt triumphant as I walked down the steps to the station having made it this far in my plan. My triumph, sadly, was short-lived and my internal warning flags started waving when I realized that there was a policeman with a dog patrolling the area in front of the ticket booth. I started to rethink my plan for cost efficiency and ease of travel in lieu of the safety of my teenage daughter. However, I was in too deep at this point, so we went forward with the subway plan.
While Camden lays claim to a lot of history and proudly boasts Historic Camden, the Revolutionary War Visitors Center, and the Battle of Camden site, New York City is full of museums. In fact, New York has so many museums that the total combined square footage of those museums is close to the total acreage of the three historic sites in Camden.
During the next several days, we visited some of these museums, and we found that they were filled with things that we could not see in Camden. We visited the Guggenheim Museum, which is housed in the unique building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. We walked into the stunning atrium with the open, clean lines of the circular ramp leading to the various levels. Mr. Wright described his design for the museum as an “inverted ziggurat,” which I interpret as a layered pyramid turned upside down. The Guggenheim Museum is probably my favorite building in New York City. We wandered through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a large stone building across from Central Park with several floors filled with all types of art. We walked through rooms with very ancient Grecian artifacts with the recognizable silhouettes of people and animals on pieces of pottery and rooms with huge, ornately framed paintings from the old masters that I had only studied in my college art appreciation class. We walked through the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which is filled with very abstract paintings, abstract sculpture, and even uncomfortable looking chairs as art. Most art on display in the MOMA was, let’s just say … not my favorite. I didn’t understand a lot of the abstract stuff, however a few pieces did appeal to me for their use of color or spatial design. My favorite piece of art that we saw there was a large impressionist mural, Water Lilies, by Claude Monet. The Museum of Natural History was the last stop of our museum tour and there we looked at dinosaur bones and watched the show in the planetarium.
During our six days in the big city, we covered a lot of ground. Polly and I walked up the 162 steps inside of the Statue of Liberty and looked at the city skyline from the windows in her crown. We visited the Empire State Building at night and looked down at all the city lights. We walked down Wall Street, and I was shocked to see heavily armed men in flak jackets carrying large automatic weapons in the financial district near the New York Stock Exchange. No one else seemed to take note of their presence and the world of the big city flowed around them.
My niece was in the city for work and my sister rode the train down from her home outside of Albany to spend some time with us. Together, we went to a Yankees baseball game in the Bronx, walked across the Brooklyn bridge, ambled through one corner of Central Park, and saw Billy Elliot on Broadway. We visited the observation deck of Rockefeller Center in the daytime, getting a great view of the vast expanse of tall buildings, Central Park, and so many city blocks. We did some late-night shopping in Times Square. Yes, Times Square was crowded with people at midnight, and I remember spending time in the huge Levi’s store there with all the other crazy tourists at those hours that are well past my bedtime. We walked through Chinatown and saw fruits or vegetables (I have no idea which) with bright colors and spiky shapes in the vendor stalls there that reminded me of Dr. Suess’s characters and objects.
We ate breakfast in Starbucks (there was one on almost every corner). We had pizza from small local pizzerias. We interrupted our visit to Museum of Modern Art to walk across the street to eat lunch at an Irish pub. We were looking at the menu posted by the door, when the manager, who happened to be standing at the door, informed us that there was also a child’s menu available. Polly was a teenager. This comment did not please Polly in the least, but we decided to have lunch there anyway. We split the best chicken parmesan meal I have ever tasted. With my sister and niece, we tried a Thai restaurant for dinner one evening. The meal was memorable to me for the coconut soup that tasted like suntan lotion and because the chicken satay that I ordered tasted fishy to me. We later learned that everything on the menu is cooked with fish sauce. I don’t eat seafood or fish of any kind really. Not a favorite for this small town, “meat and potatoes” eating, Southern seasoned girl.
Polly and I did a lot of sightseeing and shopping. We walked in the city streets, soaking in the sights and sounds, and rode the subway for miles. We left the city with my sister, taking a taxi to Grand Central Station and a train to upstate New York. We had broadened our horizons and lived in one of the largest cities in the world, if only for a few days.
I have come to believe that the differences between the big city and our small town are not good or bad in themselves. But rather, where you live depends on what you want in life. I enjoy traveling and seeing different places, but I love coming home to Camden.
New York City has exciting things to do, eye-opening things to see, and all types of cultures to explore. Camden has beautiful spaces, a small but quaint downtown, and people who I know and love. New York City is busy with people coming and going all the time. Camden is quiet and the streets are mostly empty by ten o’clock at night. I’m not a “hustle and bustle” sort of person. I want a life with an easier pace and with more open space. New York City is a great place to visit, but I’m glad Camden is my home.
